I love you. Such hollow, mocking words from her are enough to make his stomach writhe with nausea. Love is already such a fragile, dangerous concept when it comes to Gundam Tanaka. There is a barrier between him and human love, erected by himself to protect his psyche from betrayal and disappointment. Sometimes, the fleeting thought occurs to him, that he should break past his own barrier and immerse himself in a world filled with the warmth of humanity. But isn’t it already too late for that? he He has forgotten how to do so.
It is words like Junko’s that further twist the meaning of the word love for him. She is a being who makes love into something that is impossible to be trusted. Something utterly vile, worse than the poisonous curse running through his own veins. Love, malice, and manipulation… they are all parts of the same greater definition of despair. But in that moment, it doesn’t matter. His rage against her is far greater than any other feeling. Even if she is desecrating that meaning of love for him, even if her words are ruining him – as he knows they are – that horrible, primal swell of anger drowns out all of that.
Take me down.
He leaped at her, his body seemingly moving of its own will, and felt his hands close around her thin neck. How he wanted nothing more than to dig his fingernails into that modelesque jugular of hers, squeeze all the life out of her and watch a permanent expression of fear stain her pretty face. His frenzied hatred is overwhelming him, deafening his ears, transforming his own heavy breathing into static noise. Blinding red invades his vision. It could be over in a moment, with one flex of his fingers.
”…Tch…“ A swell of guilt hits him suddenly, as his classmates’ faces flash into his vision. Hajime. Kazuichi. Sonia. And the rest. All of them felt that the situations they had lived through because of her, because of Junko Enoshima, were unjust. But… they would never want him to go this far. Resorting to tactics such as murder made him no better than her. Even if he exterminated the queen of despair herself, the action would only serve to solidify his place in the world as a monster.
Gundam let go of her, still shaking with wrath. "I hope… my curse has sufficiently poisoned you, filthy wench…” Labored breaths escape his trembling lips. “You dare call me scum, you despicable virus! But, alas… call me a coward, spit in my face, but it is not my place to purge you from this world. I hope that, whenever someone does… I will be there to witness the reckoning myself.”
She knows. Oh, how Junko knows what her perversion of a love confession does to him. She knows that such a concept as love, in Gundam’s world, is somewhat of an unreachable ideal, an object lusted after, but never reached for. For if he is to reach out and break the walls he had erected, love itself could shatter to pieces, like beautiful glittering shards of glass, sharp, beautiful in it’s brokenness.
He is a coward, because if it’s worth the price, isn’t it then also worth the fight? But she is happy, so delighted in orgasmic ecstasy that her words could still have a hold over him, even if such vocalizations only held dominion over the concept of love. As long as she can influence him, he belonged to her. It meant she could still plunge her hands, elegantly clawed, into his chest and hold his very being in her hands. Her face breaks into a smile. The game isn’t over yet.
Even though she sees the anger rise up in him, she is surprised when his hands close around her throat, her back pressed against the ground. She knows that it shows on her face, but only ever so briefly as she is the master of morphing her face into that of a perfectly innocent figure. She can feel the pressure around her neck, pale, slender, oh--how nice it would have been to color her flesh with the kiss of a knife instead!--and she feels not fear, but joy. Something akin to pride swells in her--she had raised him to be the sort of man to turn against his mater--former master?--and her face flushes with nigh erotic joy. Her heart beat faster, all she can think about is him--if this isn’t love then what is?
And perhaps for that brief moment when he loses himself in righteous and justified anger Junko does love him. But any love from her is poisonous, set to strangle the target at its roots; it cannot be anything but a distorted and perverse love. It is nothing but a love for the potential of despair, bot for her, Gundam, and yes, the entire world. So yes, in that moment she is in love with the Gundam that reminds her of why she loves the world, or rather the ways she can once more ruin the world.
She laughs when he lets go of her, with those words one would expect to hear from a hero instead of the villainous character he made himself out to be. “Aha..ha!” her laughter comes out a bit disjointed from her lack of breath, but that makes the sound more frightening than an ordinary expression of her glee. “Is that all, Gundam? I’m horribly disappointed that you didn’t kill me. And what has possessed you to say such foolish words? Do you fancy yourself a virtuous villain now? Ha! You have quite effectively disillusioned yourself I see.”
She smiles as she stands, genuinely happy that he has declared he would be there in her final hour, in that very precious moment when she is extinguished. With a look that could only be described as sultry, to mock Gundam and make him uncomfortable of course, she speaks demurely, much like that of a demure girl confessing her feelings. “I’m so flattered you deem me important enough to see my execution. I’ll remember to blow a kiss your way as the guillotine falls, as the firing squad rips apart my body. How absolutely...loyal of you to remain by my side even in the end!”
@pumpkintanaka
